Bringing Light Into the Darkness and Removing Darkness from the Light
There are three approaches to darkness and light: The first focuses on the way we must look for light even as we sit in the darkness of exile. The second is to see the light of the future and live with it. The third approach is to not allow darkness to intrude in times of light. LIGHT FORM THE FUTURE – PARSHAS NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH LIGHT FORM THE FUTURE – PARSHAS NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH
BRINGING LIGHT INTO THE DARKNESS AND
REMOVING DARKNESS FROM THE LIGHT
Concealment
Right before Moses’ passing, G-d informs him of the future of the Jewish people; how they will eventually turn against G-d’s covenant and how G-d will hide His face from them:
On that day, I will become very angry with them. I will forsake them and hide My face from them… I will surely hide [literally: hide, I shall hide] My face on that day… Queen Esther in the Torah This double expression of G-d concealing His face from the Jewish people has been treated in different ways by the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. Both see the positive in the Divine concealment, but in divergent ways, consistent with their diverse approaches.
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In the Babylonian Talmud (Chagigah 5b) we read:
The Holy One blessed is He said, ”although I have concealed My face from them, I will speak to them in a dream.”
Although G-d has ceased to communicate with us overtly, He still finds ways of communicating with us via dreams.
In another passage, the Babylonian Talmud (Chulin 139b) states:
Where is Esther hinted in the Torah? “V’anaochi haster astir-I will surely hide…”
The Hebrew word for “I will hide” is “astir,” with an obvious phonetic relationship to the word Esther.
The Talmud’s message here is that Queen Esther lived in a time when G-d’s presence was concealed. The Jewish people were living in the Persian exile. King Achashveirosh expressly forbade reconstruction of the Temple, and there was no hope in sight. Haman, the influential Prime Minister of the Persian Empire, successfully convinced the king to allow the annihilation of the entire Jewish people. One cannot imagine a more concealed state of existence!
Yet, notwithstanding all of these concealments: Haman’s plan is foiled, Mordechai is promoted to the office of Prime Minister, the enemies of the Jews are handily defeated, and LIGHT FORM THE FUTURE – PARSHAS NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH the Queen of the Persian Empire is a righteous Jewish woman!
The common theme of these two selections from the Babylonian Talmud is that even in the darkness there is light. Even in exile G-d has ways of allowing His presence to shine through the cracks. Miracles, albeit cloaked in nature, still do occur.
Wake up, Queen Esther is Here!
There is a third source in the Midrash which comments on the 127 provinces that Queen Esther reigned over, as told in the Book of Esther.
The Midrash recounts that once when Rabbi Akiva was teaching his students started to doze off. He startled them awake by asking a rhetorical question that was totally unrelated to his nominal subject matter:
Why did Esther merit to reign over 127 provinces. Said the Holy one Blessed is He, ”Let Esther, the granddaughter of Sarah who lives to the age of 127, and reign on 127 provinces.”
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If Rabbi Akiva was looking for a way to awaken his students, why did he resort to a totally unrelated topic to awaken them? And if he wanted to jolt them out of their reverie by abruptly changing the subject, why of all possible topics did he choose Queen Esther’s reign, in particular?
Rabbi Akiva lived in a time of utter concealment, shortly after the Second Bais Hamikdash was destroyed and countless Jews slaughtered by the Romans. Darkness shrouded the Land of Israel. In a time of darkness and profound Divine concealment people fall asleep; if not literally then figuratively and they cannot function fully.
Rabbi Akiva realized that his students had fallen under the yoke of darkness and despair. Their minds were barely receptive to the teachings of Torah. Only Rabbi Akiva, and perhaps a handful of other Sages, had a positive and optimistic view of the future. When Rabbi Akiva passed the ruins of the Temple he laughed while his colleagues cried. Rabbi Akiva recognized that the concealment was a prelude to much greater light afterwards; he saw the future in the present. But his disciples were not that sanguine; they saw the darkness and it put them to “sleep.”
Rabbi Akiva realized that he could not rouse them to the point where they would see the future the way he did. At least, he thought, I will get them to see the silver lining in LIGHT FORM THE FUTURE – PARSHAS NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH the darkness of the present: the majority of Jews lived in the Diaspora, the Temple remained in ruins and continuous persecution by the ruthless Romans. Rabbi Akiva therefore changed the subject to Queen Esther’s ability to reign over 127 provinces. Notwithstanding the fact that she was Esther, which stands for concealment, some light shined through her.
This power, Rabbi Akiva contended, was bequeathed to her, and to all Jews, from our Matriarch Sarah, who despite having lived a difficult “concealed” life, nevertheless lived to the age of 127 with great equanimity. As Rashi explains, Sarah’s entire life was equally good. She was able to see the positive silver lining in the negative, and so can we.
Isaiah’s Reversal of Achaz
The Jerusalem Talmud, however, applies G-d’s concealment to another situation:
Referring to the Biblical account of King Achaz, who shut down all the Houses of Torah study so that the Divine presence would depart from Israel, the Jerusalem Talmud cites a verse in the Book of Isaiah where the prophet says:
I await G-d, Who has concealed His face from the House of Jacob, and I will hope for Him.
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The Jerusalem Talmud comments on this verse:
There was no more difficult time in the world than the moment G-d said to Moses, ”I will surely hide My face on that day.“ From that moment onward [Isaiah said] ”I will hope for Him,“ for Moses was told at Sinai: ”For it [the Torah] will not depart from the mouths of your children.”
Commentators explain that Isaiah looked beyond G-d’s promise of concealment, which seemed to have materialized when Achaz prevented Torah learning. Isaiah did not accept that concealment as a fait accompli, for G-d also promised that the Torah would never be forgotten. Isaiah then began teaching children anew and reversed Achaz’s actions.
Babylonian and Jerusalem Patterns
When we analyze the differences between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud the following pattern emerges:
The Babylonian Talmud speaks of seeing the light in the darkness. Even when one is in the dark exile there is light. G-d still communicates with us, albeit in a filtered way, as though in a dream. The Babylonian Talmud also sees the LIGHT FORM THE FUTURE – PARSHAS NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH concealment in the time of and associated with Queen Esther, who nevertheless prevailed over Haman and brought prosperous times for the Jews in the Persian Empire, albeit, within the framework of the concealing exile.
The Jerusalem Talmud, however, speaks of a time when the Jews were not in exile. Achaz and Isaiah lived in the Land of Israel in the period of the First Temple. What Achaz endeavored to do was bring concealment and darkness in a time and place of light; as opposed to Queen Esther, who brought light into the time of darkness. And it is this intrusion of darkness that Isaiah successfully reversed. Isaiah brought light into a time of light.
Three Perspectives
Upon deeper reflection we can detect three perspectives that emerge from the above sources.
The first is the Babylonian Talmud’s approach, which focuses on the way we must look for light even as we sit in the darkness of exile. This approach is consistent with the Babylonian Talmud being called (in the Babylonian Talmud itself) the Talmud of darkness because it was composed in the Babylonian Diaspora. It addition, it uses the Socratic approach of posing countless questions. Questions can be LIGHT FORM THE FUTURE – PARSHAS NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH obstructions to knowledge, but ultimately through them we finally see the light.
Rabbi Akiva was on a higher level even considering the terrible exile conditions that prevailed in his day. He was able to rise above exile and see the light of the future and live with it. His students were not ready for that so he attempted to lead them higher and let them see some light in the present.
The Jerusalem Talmud represents a third approach consistent with its style. Compiled in Israel, it was written in a very direct manner with far fewer questions and less of the back-and-forth give-and-take debating methodology of the Babylonian Talmud. This points to, and is a sample of, the perspective of the world of Redemption; a world where everything is bright and clear.
But even in this liberated situation, there can be darkness; it is still possible for an alien force of concealment and darkness to intrude onto the state of light. Until such time as the final Redemption will be complete, there is always the possibility for some “Achaz-esque” personality to come along, who will see things through negative or dark colored glasses no matter how bright the light is. Isaiah, the prophet of Moshiach and Redemption, will then come along and dismiss those distracting thoughts and attitudes and dispel the foreign darkness.
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“The Time of Your Redemption has Arrived!”
We are living in the time when the approach of the Jerusalem Talmud is most relevant.
The Rebbe told us that we are no longer in the same era of exile we were previously. The Rebbe explained that this means that the Redemption is situated right in front of us. All we have to do is “open our eyes” and recognize this new reality. It’s high time for us to drag the Redemption standing outside our door into our lives.
This doesn’t mean that things are now, at the moment of the writing of this essay, hunky dory. But we have to look at the negatives of today as the aberration and not as the rule. These negatives represent the intrusion of a foreign influence, trying to superimpose itself on the dynamic of Redemption which is now the reality.
While it still looks like exile, the exile is found in our look. In the past we were ensconced in exile and still had a long and arduous journey ahead to reach the period in which the dynamics of Redemption would prevail. “Today,” the Rebbe told us, “the time of your Redemption has arrived.” We may still see things with Golus-tinted glasses as the Achaz of old did in his own time but reality dictates that we are standing face to face with Redemption!.
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We must be the Isaiahs of today who defy the prediction of concealment and instead embrace the promise that the Torah will never cease from our children, a promise that is rooted in reality.
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From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Nitzavim by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
